Thursday, January 15, 2009

His finger trailed over the touch-screen surface of his PDA. The last PAC Sat-Scan passed over about an hour ago and intel said the EU one was occupied elsewhere. Something about a coordinated assault on Berlin and Verdun.

He turned and looked out from a broken porthole on the second level of the little module building he was in. The surrounding was pretty bleak, buried deep in everlasting snow.

He spotted the outlines of a city a few clicks south of his position but no one really knew the name of that place anymore. The distance from here to there was dotted with different configurations of hastily slapped together modules to form some kind of a refuge camp, a few battles had taken place here, nothing bigger than a squad-on-squad skirmish though a few walker, dropship and APC wrecks stuck out of the snow, here and there.

He turned back to his PDA, nothing much to do when you're dropped in alone, routine shit the command has the recons do in case the Sats pick up a lone EU squad or something trekking through the middle of nowhere. Send them in, sit tight and keep watch.

The last scan put the EU squad about 6 clicks south-west of his position. He grabbed a Zeller scope from a pouch on his back.

Usually these come attached to high powered anti-material rifles but he was able to get one for himself. Since the command doesn't issue binoculars anymore, this comes as the second best thing.

He peered through it, the little gyros on the thing grinding as he zoomed around the landscape, he SHOULD be able to see them by now. The EU really didn't think much about stealth on snow, their guys had bright orange parts on their armor. Every time he thought about it, Vitali chuckled, orange soldiers.

"Didn't the guys in 3rd armor regiment make a movie about guys in orange armor?" He mumbled.

"Hmm, what's that?" Vitali heard in his ear.

"Nothing, Misha. Just thought I remembered about a movie some of our guys in the third made."

"Oh! Yeah I know that one, on the tip of my tongue..."

"What was it... erm... Safety orange...?"

"No no! It wasn't Orange, it was... shit, help me out here, Koval, you were int he thir-... OH! Yeah! Safety Carrot men from Pluto!"

"What?! Seriously?" Vitali chuckled, then snorted and burst into a quiet laughter. The guys in Coms were the only things that made these ops bearable.

"Oh god, they must of all been drunk since no sane person can come up with such a name."

"Heh, well, show me someone who IS sa-" Vitali then spotted it, a dark blimp on the surface of the snow.

"I think I see em." He put the scope away and shouldered his Park 52. "Yep, got em, five units... huh.."

"What?"

"They aren't armed... much. I see two scars and a lambert, the other two are without heavy weapons."

"Hmm, what's your take?"

"Out in the open," Vitali leaned back and looked out the other side of the module, something had ripped a hole right through the building. "heading for Minsk... I'm guessing deserters."

"These were our contacts within EU. Two soldiers, a spy and two eggheads. We have already dispatched a dropship to pick you all up. You are to make contact with them, the dropship will land on your position...ETA, 5 minutes."

*sigh*"Understood."

Vitali crawled out of his hole and landed on the snow, hip deep into it. "Fuck." He struggled for a few moments to dig and crawl his way out of it. After getting out he walked towards them, it wasn't hard to see they noticed him. One of the soldiers started running at him, jogging in the snow, he lifted his rifle over the head, and so did Vitali. That was the universal "I'm not gonna shoot you." sign and the rest of the EU group started running.

The first soldier made it to Vitali.

"Hello, we here, pick-up?" The man said in disjointed Russian.

"Dropship, 3 minutes." Vitali replied. Hoping the guy would understand, though he understood and could speak English.

By the time the rest of the group reached Vitali they could hear the dropships engines as it flew close. it circled them once. then landed.

"Hury, go go!" Vitali yelled pointing at the dropship. One by one the people crawled into the aircraft and it took off.

Vitali looked over the ex EUs. They were frozen to the core, two of them were women, one of the eggheads wasn't wearing properly sized armor, cumbersome and also lacks much insulation. Tough people, must be that bad in the EU to take on such a trek.

He placed his rifle between his legs, looking at the two scars and the lambert, pooled onto the floor with other gear and ammo, not much.

"Base ETA 7 minutes." Came from the ship's intercom, Vitali leaned back and closed his eyes.